Following the Norman Conquest of 1066, England and France engaged in a prolonged dynastic struggle that eventually erupted into the "Eternal Conflict" in the late fourteenth century. The centralized Capetian dynasty of France sought to reduce England to a vassal state by claiming that the integration of the Duchy of Normandy had legally expired. The resulting war of attrition devastated both realms until 1419, when a French army under Prince Charles the Eager reached the outskirts of London. Facing imminent defeat, King Robert VI followed the seemingly absurd advice of a peasant girl, Alice of Kent, who prophesied that a divine plague would strike the invaders. The English abandoned London, and shortly after the French occupied the city, a severe pestilence decimated their ranks. Alice then led a successful English counter-attack that destroyed the remaining French forces at Dover. Although she died in the battle, her actions saved England from total occupation. The conflict ultimately concluded with a succession crisis won by the Norman-Capetian House of Monfort, ensuring that while England would be ruled by Capetians, it would remain forever separate from France.

While its ambitions in England were thwarted, France successfully turned its expansionist gaze eastward and northward. By 1502, the French Crown had formally dismantled the autonomy of the Duchy of Burgundy, utilizing its wealth to launch a decades-long campaign into the Lowlands. France's eventual conquest of wealthy Flemish cities like Antwerp and Ghent provoked the Holy Roman Empire, leading to the devastating "Lowlands War" in 1512 against the Falkenburg Emperor. The conflict ended in mutual exhaustion with the 1522 Peace of Aachen, which created the buffer state of Falkenburg Lotharingia but allowed France to retain the northern Dutch provinces. However, this triumph was fleeting; heavy French taxation and religious centralization sparked a massive Dutch revolt in 1568 led by the House of Nassau. Unable to pacify the fiercely independent mercantile elite, France was completely expelled from the region and forced to recognize the United Provinces of the Netherlands in 1587.

Within the Holy Roman Empire, the balance of power shifted dramatically following centuries of internal political strife. The imperial office had been severely weakened during the eleventh-century investiture dispute with the Papacy, allowing the Saxon dukes to champion the papal cause and eventually capture the imperial throne in 1308. However, generations of perceived Saxon overreach alienated the southern princes, most notably the House of Falkenburg in Bavaria. After a disastrous succession war in 1436 where the Saxon Emperor forced Bavaria to cede territory to Wurttemberg, the Falkenburgs rebuilt their power base in Munich and Vienna. Capitalizing on widespread anti-Saxon sentiment, Duke Konrad of Falkenburg secured the imperial election in 1471, permanently ending Saxon dominance. The Falkenburgs subsequently expanded their influence through marriage, absorbing Bohemia, and militarily defending Christendom by fighting the Islamic Emirate of Sicily in the "Italian Crusades" to secure Northern Italy.

In the northern reaches of the Holy Roman Empire, the Duchy of Zwickau initiated its own expansionist agenda against the pagan Polabian Slavs of the Nordmark. Fearing Danish or Swedish encroachment in the region, Zwickau established the military "Order of the Wend" in 1447 to conquer and Christianize the native tribes. Through decades of ruthless warfare, the Wends entirely subjugated the Slavs by 1495, creating a secularized march permanently tethered to Zwickau. Concurrently, the cultural and religious unity of the broader empire began to fracture. As the late fifteenth century gave way to the sixteenth, northern princes embraced Protestantism as a means to reject Papal corruption and resist Falkenburg centralization. Paralyzed by foreign threats, the Emperor failed to crush the heresy, leaving the empire starkly divided between a loyal Catholic south and a rebellious Protestant north.

In Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, regional hegemonies were violently overturned. Denmark's early dominance, solidified by its annexation of Norway in 1362, was shattered by the rising Kingdom of Sweden under the Stenkil dynasty. The rivalry culminated in 1542 when the Swedish army marched across the frozen straits to sack Copenhagen, establishing Swedish supremacy in the North Sea. Further east, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth consolidated into a unique aristocratic republic governed by the Sejm, while an isolated Hungary fortified its borders against surrounding powers. Meanwhile, the Republic of Novgorod threw off the centuries-old Tatar Yoke. When the Tatar Khan launched a punitive invasion in 1482, the Novgorodian forces lured the massive cavalry host onto the frozen Lake Iimen. The ice collapsed under the Tatars' weight, drowning the Khan's army and allowing Novgorod to liberate the Rus principalities. In 1521, the Grand Prince formalized this new era of dominance by crowning himself Tsar of All the Russias under the House of Volkov.